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Murkowski Decries Slanderous Attack

 

October 11, 2002
Friday - 12:40 am


The Alaska Democrat Party's desperate attempts to smear Frank Murkowski reached a new low this week as it mailed out a campaign brochure falsely blaming him for the failure of a


"For the Democrats to make such malicious accusations three weeks before the election shows how far they'll go to distract attention from the issues Alaskans really care about: A sound economy, well-paying jobs, no income taxes and a safe and secure Permanent Fund."...
Frank Murkowski


bank eight years after he left the institution, Murkowski said on Thursday.

"The Democratic Party is making an old charge, a false charge, and in this particular brochure, a slanderous charge," Murkowski said. "Democrats have made this false accusation against me in every election since 1980 with no justification for their innuendo. Their attempt to do so again now on behalf of Fran Ulmer demonstrates an appalling lack of integrity, and an embarrassing lack of creativity."

According to a information provided by Dan Saddler, Communications Director for the Murkowski for Governor Campaign, the oversized, full-color brochure seeks to blame Murkowski for investment losses by Nome-based Native regional and village corporations in the late 1970s, making an explicit allegation of mismanagement that contradicts the clear facts as available in the public and court record, he said. It also apes the national Democratic Party's current tactic of tarring Republicans with guilt by association with Enron, and by distorting Murkowski's Senate record to imply he supports "corporate greed."

"For the Democrats to make such malicious accusations three weeks before the election shows how far they'll go to distract attention from the issues Alaskans really care about: A sound economy, well-paying jobs, no income taxes and a safe and secure Permanent Fund," Murkowski said. "I call on the lieutenant governor to salvage her party's credibility and her integrity by bringing an end to these smears."

From 1971 to 1980, Murkowski was president of Alaska National Bank of the North (ANBN), which had managed Bering Strait Native Corporation (BSNC)'s share of cash proceeds from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANSCA). According to information provided by Saddler, in 1974, the bank began managing funds for Nome's village corporation, Sitnasuak, as well. Ignoring the bank's investment advice, Bering Strait began using its ANCSA money as collateral for a series of risky and ultimately doomed investments, including a concrete plant, construction firm, and tire business.

Former Alaska Attorney General Charlie Cole, who served as the bank's attorney at the time, said Murkowski was in no way responsible for these losses, and instead tried to steer the corporations away from those schemes and into better investments in the equities market.

"In my view, if BSNC had accepted Frank Murkowski's proposal, they would have been fantastically wealthy today," Cole said. "They did not accept it. Instead, the BSNC directors elected to follow an unscrupulous Pied Piper from Lincoln, Nebraska, who advised them to acquire varied businesses throughout the state (that) all went gloriously bankrupt."

Murkowski said the attacks levied in the Democrats' brochure ignored pertinent facts on the Alaska National Bank of the North, including that:

  • ANBN was a thriving institution when he left in 1980 to enter the U.S. Senate, and only failed eight years later, one of more than a dozen Alaska banks that failed when the oil price and real estate bubble economy burst in the late 1980s.
  • BSNC admitted its own complaints against the bank were without merit, and withdrew from its lawsuit a few months into the case
  • Strict laws that keep trust departments totally insulated from the commercial side of a bank mean he had no control over or responsibility for the banks' handling of Sitnasuak trust account.
  • The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. protected Sitnasuak from the effects of the bank's closure, though not of its risky investments
  • There are significant indications that the bank's trust department did warn the Sitnasuak board about its risky investments, but that the board ignored the warnings.

"The facts clearly give the lie to any claim that I was responsible in any way either for Sitnasuak's investment problems, or for the ultimate closure of the bank for unrelated reasons eight years after I left," Murkowski said. "The political motivations behind raising these baseless charges at this time are as ignoble as they are obvious."

Murkowski also said the Democrats' attack on the Enron issue ignores the facts that:

  • The Knowles/Ulmer Administration itself invited Enron to come to Alaska to invest in the natural gas pipeline project.
  • The Alaska Permanent Fund has invested in Enron with no similar outrage from the Alaska Democratic Party, even though that investment cost the state a $26 million loss.
  • National Democrat leaders, including Ulmer's friends Sens. Tom Daschle, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, benefited generously from Enron and WorldCom contributions. The Clinton/Gore inauguration in 1993 was fueled with $100,000 in Enron money, and Enron made campaign contributions to Clinton and Gore of about $25,000

"The Democratic Party's distortions and attacks on me are part of a continuing pattern of unscrupulous campaigning that I had always hoped we were free from in our state," Murkowski said. "I am sorry to see that Fran Ulmer has fallen under the influence of these outside political operatives who don't know or care about the issues we face as Alaskans."

 

Source of News Release:

Murkowski for Governor Campaign
Web Site



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